CBS6 produced a news segment about the Moonpie Madness contest held at Virginia Commonwealth University on Sunday which can be viewed at http://youtube.com/watch?v=S-ZuwD3PScw Chris “The Nasty” Iganacio won the contest. Some other Moonpie Madness videos can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MoonPieMadness

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The “Stuff Yo’ Face” Hot Dog Eating Contest to be held at Penn State on April 29 will have both individual and team events. The contest page describes the prize for the individual contest:

Each person will be competing to qualify for an official Nathan’s sponsored event to qualify for the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest this July 2007. We will have a representative from Nathan’s coordinating this category to make sure the rules and regulations are in cooperation with Nathan’s.

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A blog about the Moonpie Madness contest to be held at Virginia Commonwealth Univerisity has been set up at http://moonpiemadnessdave.blogspot.com/. The blogger describes the event:

MoonPie Madness stands to be the largest MoonPie eating contest to ever be held. Ever. At VCU at least. But for the record, we haven’t heard of any other eating contests to have over 64 people competiting on the same day, and we’re estimating to have at least 84 “gurgataters” so I’d say we’re safe in making that claim. 84 gurgataters! MoonPies!?! How’s this all going down? Well, here’s the deal:

There’s 2 competitions going on the sacred day of April 1st. An exhibition (a classic eating contest where everyone has 5 minutes to out eat each other, and try to break the unofficial record of 15 in 5 minutes), and as I like to call it, The Grand Tourney” (a March Madness themed eating contest where 64 students will go through 6 – 2 minute rounds and work their way through the bracket.)

I think some Japanese contests have had more than 84 entrants, but I am not aware of any US contests with that large a field. The contest is restricted to VCU students only.

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Fredricksburg.com reports that Sonya Thomas ate 22.5 hot dogs in 6 minutes at a contest at the University of Mary Washington yesterday, easily beating the runner-up, freshman Rugby player Daniel Kauffman, who ate 12 HDB. Sonya had hoped to eat more than 22.5:

Despite handily defeating the students, Thomas said she performed poorly because her jaw got tired.

When she practiced for the event a month ago, she said she ate at least 25 hot dogs in six minutes.

Even after yesterday’s marathon of sorts, she munched on a bun. “I’m tasting,” she said, while before she was just swallowing.

“You are my idol,” one student told her.

update Some pictures have been added

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The Harvard Crimson reports that Richard Tarnas was using performance enhancing drugs when he won an eating contest by consuming 17.5 pancakes in December 1969:

Trainer David R. Bishop 72 attributed Tarnas’s victory to his rigid two-week training program.

“We had Rick on a tough schedule-smoking grass every day and never going to bed before 4 a.m.,” said Bishop. “Then the stoned Munchies-brought on by two pre-contest joints-floated my man to victory,” he added.

Richard Tarnas is currently professor of philosophy and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. His most recent book is Cosmos and Psyche. The astroknavery blog describes the content of that work:

Subtitled, Intimations of a New World View and based, Tarnas claims, upon 30 years* of research, it strives to address what he calls “the profound metaphysical disorientation and groundlessness that pervades contemporary human experience” by suggesting a “new metanarrative that transcends separate cultures and subcultures, an encompassing pattern of meaning that could give to collective human existence a nourishing coherence and intelligibility.”

That meta-narrative, as he calls it, is astrology.

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Bordeaux Undiscovered reports that the wine societies of Oxford and Cambridge Universities want to have wine tasting classified as an official collegiate sport. The wine contests will be judged by how many questions about the wine a taster gets correct and not volume or speed of consumption.

Food falls into the sport category – so why not wine? Competitive Eating is considered a sport. This is a sport which involves the consumption of large quantities of food in a short time period – typically 12 minutes or less. I think the rules can be stretched to include wine tasting – don’t you?

As usual it boils down to tradition – and this is a difficult thing to break in our ancient educational establishments. Awarding colours for sporting achievements dates back to the early 19th century when Oxford and Cambridge staged their first rowing races.

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I recently came across this article and video on wjz.com about a pancake eating contest held at Pete’s Grille in Baltimore in November. Johns Hopkins student Liz Gilbert won the women’s division with 10.5 pancakes in a hour. She won the division in 2004 and was DQed in 2005. There is an article about Ms. Gilbert in the Johns Hopkins newsletter in which she describes why she competes in eating contests:

“Eating is such a faux-pas for women. Eating and food, for American women, is too big a deal. I like to see people take it less seriously, take their bodies less seriously, and this is something that’s emblematic of that,” she said.

“[Expletive deleted] it. I don’t care if people think I eat a lot. If you keep a regular diet and exercise and feel good about yourself, I don’t see why you can’t go out and do something excessive every once and a while.”

5th place men’s finisher Scott Yin also gets an article in the Johns Hopkins newsletter. Only the first name of the men’s division winner, Lee, is listed.

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The prelimiaries for the Rice & Bean Pot Burrito Eating contest are taking place at the four Boston area “Beanpot” colleges this week:

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newsobserver.com has an article about the Krispy Kreme Challenge held yesterday in Raleigh, NC. 722 participants registered to eat a dozen doughnuts at the midpoint of a 4 mile run. NC State senior Auburn Staples won the event in about 24 minutes and required approximately 7 minutes to finish his doughnuts. He did the first two miles in about 8 minutes. KrispyKremeChallenge.com has full results.

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There will be a haggis eating contest at San Francisco University on Thursday to celebrate the Chinese New Year. An attempt will be made to set the record for the largest number of people eating haggis simultaneously. The contest was instituted to honor both SFU’s Scottish traditions and the university’s large Asian population.

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First Bo Bice enters an eating contest at the Texas State Fair, and now another of the Whaler’s enemies has entered a (fictional) eating contest. The Duke student newspaper has a story about members of the Duke basketball team competing in an eating contest at McDonald’s.

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(Thanks Jed Donahue) Eaters whose new year’s resolution is to exercise more might want to consider entering the Krispy Kreme Challenge in Raleigh, NC, on January 27 as it is the first contest I am aware of to include eating & cardiovascular activity. The contest will involve running from the NC State Bell Tower to a Krispy Kreme about 2 miles away, eating a dozen Krispy Kremes at that location, then running back to the bell tower. Regurgitation is frowned upon, but will apparently not result in disqualification. The race will be timed like a typical road race and proceeds will benefit the North Carolina Children’s Hospital.

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realfootball365.com reports that the USC football team defeated the University of Michigan’s team in the Beef Bowl prime rib contest, 630 pounds to 612 pounds. The contest is held at Lawry’s in Beverly Hills and teams dine in separate sessions. Freep.com has a report on Michigan’s trip to Lawry’s. Teams that win the Beef Bowl win the Rose Bowl 70% of the time, which held up when USC won the Rose Bowl yesterday.

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(from independentmail.com) Clemson defensive tackle Elsmore Gabriel required the Heimlich maneuver after getting a bone lodged in his throat during a rib eating contest held at the Music City Bowl (Nashville, TN) team welcome party. Gabriel continued eating after the bone was removed and Clemson lost the contest to Kentucky by two ribs. William “Refrigerator” Perry, who appeared in the 2003 Nathan’s finals and a Kobayashi cartoon on Saturday Night Live, also played defensive tackle at Clemson.

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Qdoba is sponsoring the Rice & Bean Pot Burrito Eating Contest. The contest is open to teams of 4 from the “Bean Pot” colleges: Boston U, Boston College, Northeastern & Harvard. Proceeds will go to the Cam Neely foundation. Finals will be on February 8, with preliminary rounds in late January and early February. A video promoting the contest can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab7QPQq9mNY

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Justin Mih might have a female competitive eating counterpart in the Harvard community. The Harvard Crimson reports that Gretchen Salyer, a 2005 graduate, won the garlicky greens eating contest at b.good in Cambridge by eating 2.73 pounds of vegetables in 5 minutes, defeating last year’s champion John Pepper. Ms. Salyer is a former member of the Harvard/Radcliffe crew team.

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There will be a wing eating contest between teams from Yale and Princeton before Saturday’s football game. The Broad Recognition blog has a response to the requirement that the teams must contain one female.

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In a recent comment about the Mobile Wing Bowl, Hall Hunt said he had never heard of a wing eating contest as short as three minutes. Youtube has a clip of a wing eating contest a quarter of that length for sorority members. The winner, Keighrah (last name unknown), ate an impressive 24 wings to win the contest.

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From an email:

Good afternoon! My name is Tim Ahn and I am writing on behalf of Checkers and the DeVos Sport Business Management program at UCF. We are in the middle of a marketing campaign for Checkers which we have based on a Checkers Burger eating contest between individual contestants on campuses at UF, UCF, USF, and FSU. The name of our contest is the Checkers Burger Bowl with the slogan, “The Ultimate Cross Town Challenge.” I heard through word of mouth that you had actually mentioned our first event at UF on EatFeats.com. I am guessing that Hall Hunt is the one who provided the heads up as I had dialogue with him prior to the event. I just wanted to also mention that our UCF event was this past Friday, 10/13, and we will conclude the contest with stops at USF on 11/11 and FSU on 11/18. Prizes are awarded to the top two entrants for each school ($250 for first, one year supply of Checkers for second place). The 10 contestants from each school will also combine their scores to determine the winning school for the Checkers Burger Bowl. The winning school will receive a trophy.

We truly appreciate the mention of our first event and would welcome and be grateful if you would add our two remaining events to your calendar of events. If there is any more information I could provide, please feel free to contact myself or the Checkers Burger Bowl Team at checkersburgerbowl@gmail.com. Thank you!

Regards,
Tim Ahn

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The UCLA student newspaper has a column praising Rich LeFevre’s performance in the jalapeno contest which calls for a UCLA eating championship to start the school year.

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goldenpalaceevents.com has a gallery of the Key Lime Pie eating contest at Panama City Beach held during spring break. I think most of the pictures are from the amateur contest held the day before the contest won by Pat Bertoletti because I do not recognize the majority of the contestants. Several females competed in the amateur contest and apparently did reasonably well judging by the post-contest pictures.

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In this article about a hot dog contest at Princeton University, the organizer of the contest says he was inspired by MTV’s True Life episode about competitive eating. The contest raised $6,539 for charity and each competitor took pledges for donated amounts for hot dogs eaten. Ruben Pope won with 16 hot dogs in 15 minutes.

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The Rutgers University student paper reports that Christine Ma won a pizza eating contest by eating almost an entire pizza in an unspecified period of time.

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The Princeton University student newspaper has a pro competitive eating column which promotes a hot dog eating contest to be held May 2. The column does not mention Kate Stelnick, the Princeton region’s most famous competitive eater, or the June 23 Nathan’s qualifier in greater Princeton (Molly Pitcher Travel Plaza) in which Charles Hardy Jr. will make his debut.

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Brian Seiken has a photo gallery of Saturday’s goldenpalace.net jalapeno popper eating contest held at the Tuscon Spring Fling. It is surprising that Rich LeFevre did not compete in a southwestern contest.

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